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| Myanmar's government has built transit camps in Rakhine but so far not a single Rohingya has crossed back from Bangladesh (AFP Photo/Cape Diamond) |
Maungdaw (Myanmar) (AFP) - A Myanmar official in Rakhine state said Saturday that Rohingya refugees who return will not be held in newly-built camps "forever," as concerns mount over a vexed repatriation process and efforts to reshape communities in the crisis-hit state.
Ye Htut,
the administrator of Maungdaw district, was speaking to reporters on a
government-chaperoned trip to northern Rakhine, the site of a military
crackdown last August that has emptied the region of some 700,000 Rohingya
Muslims.
Myanmar has
been trumpeting its readiness to take back refugees, who are massed across the
border in Bangladesh, and built reception centres and transit camps for
returnees.
But not a
single Rohingya has crossed the border, with the United Nations sounding the
alarm that Myanmar must do far more to ensure the safety of a minority that was
targeted in an army-led campaign the UN branded "ethnic cleansing".
Rights
groups have also raised concerns about how Buddhist-majority Myanmar is
reconstructing Rakhine in the Rohingyas' absence, with authorities bulldozing
over their burned villages and building new settlements and security posts.
An AFP
reporter witnessed a flurry of construction in the region on Saturday, with
work crews erecting prefabricated houses along a road leading to Maungdaw town.
Speaking to
reporters from his office, Ye Htut insisted that any Rohingya returnees would
eventually be resettled close to their original villages after staying in
transit camps.
"I
can't ask them to live (at the camps) forever...We don't have any vision or
intention to keep them long," he said.
The
government "will return them back to their native villages or close
by," he added.
But a visit
to one of the resettlement sites intended for Rohingya, whom a government
official referred to only as Muslims, showed slow progress.
Only three
squat houses with concrete and brick foundations had been built in a field
covered in churned up dirt and tread marks from heavy machinery.
Charred
ruins
The site,
which lies two hours north of Maungdaw town by car, was chosen for its
proximity to the original village, which lay in charred ruins within view.
Myint
Khaing, Maungdaw township administrator, said about 100 families were supposed
to live in the new site and that it would be completed in two months.
Asked why
its construction was not as far along as a settlement 30 minutes away intended
for an internally displaced ethnic minority called the Mro, he suggested
priority was given to communities that had not fled to Bangladesh.
"They
didn't run away," he said.
Myanmar has
vehemently denied accusations that is trying to erase the Rohingya's ties to
Rakhine, insisting the army crackdown was a targeted assault on Muslim
militants.
But the UN
and rights groups have pointed to the country's long history of marginalising
and persecuting the Muslim minority, who are denied citizenship and loathed by
the Buddhist majority.
More than
100,000 are still languishing in a squalid refugee camp in southern Rakhine
state after being displaced by communal violence in 2012.
On Friday
the head of the UN's refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, said the conditions for
the Rohingyas' safe return were not yet in place and that discussions with
Myanmar on repatriation "have been pretty basic, not very frequent (and)
not very advanced".
Myanmar and
Bangladesh signed a deal that was supposed to see repatriation begin in
January.
But Myanmar
has so far agreed to accept only 374 of 8,000 refugees whose names have been
put forward by Dhaka for the initial batch of returnees.
Related Article:
'Wake up' and stop Rohingya abuses: Nobel laureates to Suu Kyi
With #Rohingya gone, Myanmar's ethnic #Rakhine seek Muslim-free 'buffer zone' pic.twitter.com/gGE8y5N1dU— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 16, 2018
VIDEO: Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi pulls out of a public speech and question-and-answer session in Sydney because she is "not feeling well" pic.twitter.com/kXfYZ15oz7— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 19, 2018
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